Blog Posts by Melanie Teff

Women’s groups in Khartoum are working together to push for reform of north Sudan’s criminal laws on rape and adultery. Despite all of the difficulties that they face, they are taking positive steps forward and using the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence to launch their campaign.

Over the past year the U.S. has taken a leading role at the United Nations on violence against women. Yet the U.S. has still not adopted the legislation that adopts a comprehensive approach to violence against women around the world.

“Nothing has ever been achieved for displaced women in Colombia without us fighting for our own rights, so we decided to take our cases to court. We knew we were taking a risk as so many of our leaders have been threatened and physically attacked, but we decided to go ahead anyway.”

A Colombian displaced woman told me this while we sat in the women’s community center that had recently been re-built after it was burned down by an illegal armed group.

U.S. major league baseball teams recently started requiring potential players and their parents to undergo DNA testing to prove who recruits are – an attempt to try to ensure that they aren't understating their age in order to win more lucrative contracts. Fortunately there is a better, cheaper and more reliable way to confirm age and identity. It’s called birth registration.

Shadi Sadr, a remarkable Iranian women’s rights activist, was beaten and arrested on Friday July 17 and is being held in detention. I met Shadi at a conference last year and was struck by her courage and quiet determination that over time her work as a human rights lawyer and peaceful campaigner would bring more respect for women’s rights in Iran.

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